Designing Difference: Open Innovation in Fashion

The fashion industry is in an era of rapid change, rising competition, and increasing complexity regarding differentiation. In the context of external pressure for differentiation, innovation has emerged as a critical strategic lever, not only for survival and relevance but also for brand definition and cultural capital expansion. The present thesis investigates how fashion firms generate product innovation through external collaboration. While little research has been undertaken on this form of collaboration within the fashion field, this study applies the Open Innovation (OI) model applied by Butticè et al. (2023) to high-end fashion. The research employed a qualitative design. More specifically, data were gathered through seven expert interviews. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis, and both the interviews and the analysis were built around the OI model by using the three mechanisms to create ties to foster innovation: leveraging existing ties, product exposure, and entrepreneur exposure. The evidence suggests that fashion firms employ external partnerships not merely as a marketing strategy, but as a key mechanism to bring innovation within the firms' boundaries. Key findings confirm and extend the OI model, and they also underline the drawbacks and the risks involved in partnership projects. Furthermore, the thesis provides significant contributions to practice through providing an understanding of the role that partnerships play in enhancing innovation capabilities. Different companies could benefit from the findings and insights discussed in the present dissertation. However, the study is not without limitations. The sample size, European-centric nature, the focus on a specific type of partnership, and the lack of consumer perspectives are just some of the study's limitations, which cannot be underestimated. Building on these limitations, recommendations for future research include a wider and more globally distributed sample, the inclusion of the consumer perspective, and a deeper exploration of long-term impacts. Such studies could enrich the understanding of how innovation unfolds over time and across cultural contexts, ultimately equipping fashion firms with actionable insights for designing more resilient and future-oriented collaborative innovation strategies.